Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia

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34607

George Washington’s chef, Hercules, was recalled by Martha Washington’s grandson as “a celebrated artiste … as highly accomplished a proficient in the culinary art as could be found in the United States.” He grew up as a slave on Washington’s plantation and became an important member of Washington’s household from the 1780s to 1797, acting as head cook at Mount Vernon and in Philadelphia during Washington’s time as president. Records of the estate show that for some reason he was left behind at Mont Vernon at the end of 1796 and assigned menial laborer’s duties. He escaped to freedom from Mount Vernon in 1797, and later was legally manumitted under the terms of Washington’s will.

(For an interesting book about Washington’s slaves: George Washington and the Slave Who Got Away)

34608

Hercules Mulligan was an Irish immigrant who lived in New York City and befriended a young Alexander Hamilton. Mulligan was married to the niece of British Admiral Charles Sanders, but he was a revolutionary who may have influenced Hamilton in his revolutionary outlook. Mulligan is a major character in the musical Hamilton.

34609

The Howard DGA-6 was a pioneer racing plane, nicknamed Mister Mulligan. It was the only airplane ever designed for the specific purpose of winning the 1935 Bendix Trophy. The plane was designed and developed by Ben Howard and Gordon Israel, who later became an engineer for the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation.* Mister Mulligan* was designed to fly the entire length of the race, from Burbank to Cleveland, nonstop and at high altitude. Neither had ever been done before, but Howard and Israel succeeded.

DGA stood for Damn Good Airplane.

34610

On April 28, 1909, Frenchman Louis Paulhan won an air race from London to Manchester, the first long-distance airplane race in England. He took a £10,000 prize offered for the flight. This prize had been offered in 1906 by the Daily Mail for the first pilot to fly from London to Manchester within 24 hours. The flight had to start and finish within five miles of the newspaper’s office in each city, with no more than two landings en route. In 1906 this seemed an impossible feat—the best European fliers then could only stay aloft for seconds.

34611

Marc Pourpe was a French aviation pioneer and stunt pilot. His mother was the famous courtesan, Liane de Pougy, and his father was a young sailor, who was not his mother’s husband. Pourpe partnered with Raoul Lufbery, who became his mechanic, and the two barnstormed throughout Europe and the Middle East. Both served in the French Air Force during World War I, but Pourpe died when his plane crashed during a flight that most of his comrades felt was too dangerous due to bad weather. Lufbery went on to become a flying ace during the war, with seventeen confirmed combat victories.

34612

Charles Lindbergh scored a kill in a P-38, during a raid on a Japanese airfield near New Guinea. He flew over 50 combat missions with units he was instructing on maximizing their airplanes’ range, quite improperly for a civilian. He had pled with President Roosevelt to be reinstated into the Army and flying duty, but was denied due to his famous pro-Nazi sympathies.

34613

Long-time friend, Ben Smith of Los Altos (Ben Herbert Smith, or his Swedish birth name Bengt Herbert Smith), son of Olaf and Selma Haakanson who changed their name to Smith, flew the P-38 Lightning in WWII. He fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal. He related to me of his ditching a Bell P-39 Airacobra in the Pacific Ocean, and of also flying his P-38 beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

Ben met and worked together with Charles Lindbergh on improving fuel economy and range of the P-38.

Rest in Peace, Ben my good friend, and thank you for living the faithful Christian life you led. You are now home with your beloved Val, and I will see you soon enough when I too am called home.

Obituaries

Ben Herbert Smith: BEN HERBERT SMITH

Val June Smith: Obituary Notices

34614

On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the eldest son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped in a highly publicized crime. The 20-month-old toddler was abducted from his family home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey. Over two months later his body was discovered a short distance from Highfields. After an investigation that lasted more than two years, Richard Hauptmann was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed as the perpetrator. The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the “Lindbergh Law,” which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.

34615

Lindbergh is buried in Hana, Hawaii, near Maui’s east end. It is easy to find and visit, just off the Hana Highway which is the tourist attraction, “the famous road to Hana.” His grave is just south of the Seven Sacred Pools at Ohe’o and is on the property of the Palapala Ho‘Omau Congregational Church, Hana. Along the Hana Highway, look for the sign for Maui Stables near mile marker 41 and turn south there. That road leads directly to the church, within about 100-200 yards of the Hana Highway.

34616

In 1930 Anne Morrow Lindbergh became the first woman to receive a glider pilot’s license. In 1931 and 1933, she and her husband flew a series of long-distance flights and surveyed nearly 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) of potential commercial aviation pathways. They charted a new Pacific Ocean aviation route and circumnavigated the Atlantic Ocean. Throughout the flights, Anne Lindbergh acted as her husband’s co-pilot, radio operator, and navigator.

In 1934 Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the first woman to be awarded National Geographic Society’s highest honor, the Hubbard Medal for the critical role she played in her and her husband’s success—and for being the first woman ever to fly those routes.

34617

Gardiner Hubbard, first president of the National Geographic Society, is the Hubbard Medal’s namesake. Some key winners:

1906: Robert Peary; first winner
1907: Roald Amundsen
1910: Sir Ernest Shackleton
1927: Charles Lindbergh
1934: Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1962: John Glenn, USMC
1970: Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins (Collins drove the getaway car :D)
1996: Robert Ballard

34618

Matthew Henson was awarded the Hubbard Medal posthumously in 2000 for his association with Robert Peary.

34619

The first-ever Muppet was Kermit the Frog who debuted in 1955. Kermit is over 60 years old. The Muppets, an amalgamation of marionette and puppet, were created by Jim Henson who was born in Mississippi. In 2004 the Disney Corporation purchased the Muppet intellectual properties from the Jim Henson Company for $75 million.

34620

Kermit Roosevelt was the second son of Theodore Roosevelt. He fought a lifelong battle with depression and alcoholism, ultimately leading to suicide while serving in the U.S. Army in Alaska during World War II.

34621

1937-05-27: the Golden Gate Bridge opens, connecting San Francisco to Marin Couty to the north
1936-11-12: the Bay Bridge opens, connecting San Francisco to Oakland to the east

Wikipedia has a page titled Suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge. To date, over 1,600 people have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge – an average of 20 a year. There used to be an official count of GG Bridge suicides but that ended in 1995 as the number approached 1,000. The count ended at 997 on 05 June 1995.

That official count was sorted by the nearest lamp post they jumped from.

The deck of the GG Bridge is about 245 feet above the water. After a fall of four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 75 mph. Most jumpers die from impact trauma. About 5% of the jumpers survive the initial impact but generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water. Most suicide jumps occur on the side facing the bay. The side facing the Pacific is closed to pedestrians (but is open to bicyclists).

As of July 2013, only 34 people are known to have survived the jump. Those who do survive strike the water feet-first and at a slight angle, although individuals may still sustain broken bones or internal injuries. One young woman, Sarah Rutledge Birnbaum, survived, but returned to jump again and died the second time.

On September 24, 2000, Kevin Hines was 19 years old, paranoid, and hallucinating when he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. During the fall, his body rotated so that when he hit the water he landed in a sitting position, taking the impact in his legs and up through his back. Three of his vertebrae were shattered, lacerating his lower internal organs. A United States Coast Guard vessel rescued him, and he was transported to a hospital in San Francisco where he received emergency surgery. Following further, experimental surgery, any physical evidence of his experience is almost non-existent, and Hines has full mobility. Regarding his thoughts after the jump, Hines stated, “There was a millisecond of free fall. In that instant, I thought, what have I just done? I don’t want to die. God, please save me.”

YouTube, 6-min video: - YouTube

For the Bay Bridge, it is estimated that there are 3-4 suicide jumpers each year, compared with 20 for the GG Bridge.

34622

“Song from MAS*H (Suicide Is Painless)” was written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics). Mike Altman is the son of the original film’s director, Robert Altman, and was 14 years old when he wrote the song’s lyrics at his father’s request; Robert had tried to write what was supposed to be “the stupidest song in the world” himself but was unable to do it. He turned over the job to his son, who wrote the lyrics in a few minutes.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1980s, Robert Altman said that while he only made $70,000 for having directed the movie, his son had earned more than $1 million for having co-written the song.

[I heard that a friend of a friend wanted this song to be played as his wedding song ;)]
[Great suicide prevention story from Kevin Hines! http://www.kevinhinesstory.com/bio/]

34623

Great trivia there, gkster! My wife loved MASH* while growing up. I’ll share that with her.

In play (seriously) – Googling ‘stupidest song ever’ yielded this buzzfeed list near the top of the results: These Are 30 Of The Worst Songs Ever Written. On that list are:

#30: Eagles - “Hotel California”
#18: Boston - “More Than A Feeling”

**Of Rolling Stones’ 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, Hotel California is up there at #49. (And I personally like #18, More Than A Feeling. It is from Boston’s first album, which Rolling Stone ranks as #41 on The 100 Best Debut Albums Of All Time.

34624

Those alleged middle names are non-canon, BTW: Montgomery Scott | Memory Alpha | Fandom

In play:

Jeffrey Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) famously says in The Big Lebowski that he “hates the fuckin’ Eagles, man,” but a Gipsy Kings cover of “Hotel California” is heard when Jesus Quintana (John Turturro) first appears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZR58d77a4A

34625

The “warm smell of colitas” in the Eagles’ Hotel California refers to the smell of the tail of an MJ joint, where the sap is a little heavier and therefore more potent. So sayeth Cecil himself, and Irving Azoff of the Eagles.

The actual Hotel California may be along the road to Cabo San Lucas from La Paz. I’ve driven to there, and stopped for a drink… on a dark desert highway, with cool wind in my hair. I didn’t smell any warm colitas, though.

ETA, thanks EH!

34626

Eagles are found on the flags of the President and Vice President of the United States, as well as those of all the Cabinet secretaries except Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Education.